Los Angeles County Health Department released a new report on protecting residents who live near oil wells. Pictures is an oil well site next to a residence in the 1100 block of Cruces Street in the Wilmington area of Los Angeles, Calif., on Dec. 18, 2017,(Photo by Leo Jarzomb, SGV Tribune/ SCNG)

More protections are needed for residents living in close proximity to thousands of oil and gas wells releasing toxic air contaminants near homes, schools and playgrounds in dense, low-income neighborhoods, according to a report released Tuesday by the Los Angeles County Department of Health.

If nothing is done, more than 300 chemicals used to extract harder-to-reach oil and gas reserves beneath urban Los Angeles “present public health concerns, ranging from respiratory health effects to development of cancer,” the county department reported.

There are 3,468 active oil wells in the county, 880 of which operate in the city of Los Angeles. Some are located as close as 60 to 100 feet from residential front doors. The closer they are, the greater the potential for negative health effects, the report states, including exposure to benzene, a known carcinogen, and hydrogen sulfide, a compound that smells like rotten eggs and can cause gastrointestinal sickness.

“The potential public health impacts of oil and gas sites located in densely populated areas are concerning,” the report concluded, adding the possibility of short-term effects and, to a lesser extent, long-term illnesses increases because many do not have access to health care.

The report was ordered by the city of Los Angeles after complaints of headaches, eye and throat irritation, nausea and vomiting were received from residents of South Los Angeles, Wilmington and unincorporated county areas in the past several years. The county worked with the Oil and Gas Strike Team which was already investigating several sites. The team found 15 with wells or tanks less than 300 feet from the nearest residence or school; two of those sites contained 60 wells.

The health department emphasized increasing the distance between sensitive populations and oil wells as one of the better ways to protect public health. This can be done by extending what is called the setback from an oil facility and a residence or school. The county requires a 300-foot setback, and the report recommends increasing that up to 1,500 feet.

Los Angeles County, the second largest oil-producing county in the state, has one of the shorter setback requirements for oil and gas facilities in the country. Dallas requires 1,500 feet, and the state of Maryland requires 1,000 feet from homes, schools and faith institutions, the report found.

A coalition of neighborhood and environmental groups known as Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling is asking for oil and gas facilities to be zoned 2,500 feet from a home. That may make many existing facilities incompatible uses.

“Those within the setback would have to stop operations,” said Martha Arguello, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility and co-chair of STAND-LA. But the well owners would have to be paid to shut down, she said.

Having uses that don’t fit with a neighborhood is something cities and counties deal with all the time, and this should be no different, Arguello said. For example, Pasadena has set a 600-foot minimum setback for marijuana dispensaries upon voter approval. The city has fined medical marijuana stores for violating zoning laws.

“We’ve been ignoring the people who live within a very close proximity to these wells. For the last 30 years, oil has gone unregulated in the city of Los Angeles and no one was paying attention,” Arguello said.

As more oil reserves become less reachable, more chemical stimulation is needed, increasing air toxic exposures. “It is estimated that 26 percent of active wells in the Los Angeles Basin have been stimulated by methods such as hydraulic fracturing, frac‐packing, or high‐rate gravel packing,” the report found.

“Our worry is they will continue to use enhanced methods of extracting oil that is as dangerous or more dangerous than traditional oil drilling,” Arguello said.

Other safety measures recommended include:

Installation of continuous air monitors so experts at the South Coast Air Quality Management District would know if toxic air contaminant levels were unsafe. While some monitoring is done, the report called the efforts “sporadic.”

Steve Scauzillo covers environment and transportation for the Southern California News Group. He has won two journalist of the year awards from the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club and is a recipient of the Aldo Leopold Award for Distinguished Editorial Writing on environmental issues. Steve studied biology/chemistry when attending East Meadow High School and Nassau College in New York (he actually loved botany!) and then majored in social ecology at UCI until switching to journalism. He also earned a master's degree in media from Cal State Fullerton. He has been an adjunct professor since 2005. Steve likes to take the train, subway and bicycle – sometimes all three – to assignments and the newsroom. He is married to Karen E. Klein, a former journalist with Los Angeles Daily News, L.A. Times, Bloomberg and the San Fernando Valley Business Journal and now vice president of content management for a bank. They have two grown sons, Andy and Matthew. They live in Pasadena. Steve recently watched all of “Star Trek” the remastered original season one on Amazon, so he has an inner nerd.

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